ARTICLES

Small town Nasakirali is one of the 29 territorial entities in Ozurgeti district. Ukrainian, Russian, Armenian, Azerbaijan, Kurds, Belorussian, Estonian, Polish, Turkish, Lithuanian, Chinese and Georgian people peacefully live together in the town. The Human Rights Center got interested about the life of Turk-Meskhetians. Their settlement is 3 kilometers away from Nasakirali but it belongs to the town. “We always vote National Movement during elections but they have never kept their promises yet,” said Meskhetians.

Young Lawyers Association will sue the Ministry of Internal Affairs at court. MIA did not allow the association to defend detainee Khatuna Charaeva from Akhalgori district. Lawyer of the GYLA Nino Khaindrava reported she has been unsuccessfully requesting case materials from the MIA for more than one month. Relatives of the detainee do not have information about the detainee. Since detention, Khatuna Charaeva disappeared.

TV-Radio Company “Trialeti” requests to start criminal investigation against head of Gori Tax Inspection Levan Tsitelashvili. The latter persecutes TV-Company “Trialeti” when local TV-station reports about the problems of population.

Directors of public schools cannot make comments with journalists unless they agree the issue with the press-center of the Ministry of Education. On January 21, minister of education and science Dimitri Shashkin stated in the TV-program “Dialogue with Davit Paichadze” that based on his resolution directors of public schools cannot give interview to journalists unless they agree the issue with the press-center of the ministry of education.

In Samtredia everybody knows the village of Ianeti and so-called ninth settlement in the village where repatriated Meskhetians have lived for 28 years already. Initially, in 1982, only 5 families were repatriated from Kabardo-Balkan and settled in a small village of Imereti region. Later 30 families joined them and during Stalin’s governance, Meskhetians from Meskhet-Javakheti region became residents of Imereti region.

Policy of “tightening belts” aims to reduce expenditure of state infrastructure and optimizations of the funds. The funds released from similar optimization had to be spent on various activities which will stimulate the economics. Because of financial crisis, the president of Georgia and prime-minister once more announced the policy of: tightening of belts” late in January of 2009. “We, state institutions – president’s administration, executive government, city halls, district administrations, shall tighten belts and reduce administrative expenses and spend the released money on saving the working places,” said Mikheil Saakashvili.

Organization International Budget Partnership published results of its survey in transparency of state budgets. Georgia was granted with 53 points among 85 states. Georgia is back than Korea, Peru, Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, etc.

Human Rights Commission of the Conservative Party granted status of political prisoner to the coordinator of the Kakheti region office of the Republic Party Merab Katamadze. Several non-governmental organizations and opposition parties are members of the human rights commission. Among them is the Human Rights Center.

The Human Rights Center publishes the part of 2009 Report of the Human Rights Watch which is about Georgia. The report strictly criticizes the government of Georgia which did not investigate the facts of breached constitutional rights of demonstrators on November 7, 2007 and in April-June of 2009. The organization also discusses Russian-Georgian conflict and states that Georgia shall investigate violation of its responsibility for artillery attack on civilians in Tskhinvali and for other military attacks.

Number of arguments about labor agreements has increased at Kutaisi City Court. This fact is directly connected with the Labor Code of Georgia, as lawyers clarify. “We have discriminative Labor Code in Georgia which does not protect rights of the employed people,” said lawyers of the Kutaisi office of the Young Lawyers Association of Georgia. They clarify that the amendments, recently introduced to several laws of Georgia, should have dealt initially with the Labor Code.

Residents of the village of Sakobo in Sighnaghi district request to clean the territory of former warehouse of pesticides. Within the grant of the Dutch international organization outdated pesticides were withdrawn from the warehouse; part of the territory has turned into swamp. Locals state the situation is particularly unbearable in summer when the water stinks in the channels. During rains, the water flows into Alazani irrigation channel from the swamp.

Security guard of the Shida Kartli Regional Administration physically assaulted correspondent of the Human Rights Center Saba Tsitsikashvili. The incident occurred on January 22 when the journalist visited the regional administration to get the public information he had requested several days before. Before entering the building, the head of the administration Zurab Lomidze saw Saba Tsitsikashvili from the window; the latter was going to meet Lomidze.

According to the reliable information, 11 Georgian prisoners are in Tskhinvali prison now. All of them were kidnapped in different situations after Russian-Georgian armed conflict. There is only one exception, who was arrested during the armed conflict in August of 2008. He is Zviad Kobaladze, cousin of General Koba Kobaladze, who was arrested on the third day of the war.

More than once month has passed after the explosion of the Memorial to Victory in Kutaisi. The explosion resulted into a tragedy and the government of Georgia promised to investigate the incident and punish offenders in accordance to the law. According to current information, criminal investigation was launched on the fact and law enforcement officers initially arrested head of Sakpetkmrestvi Ltd Avtandil Darsavelidze and then two representatives of the Ltd.

Georgian Public Defender Giorgi Tugushi, sent case materials on the assault on journalists Nana Pazhava and Ilia Chachibaia to the Chief Prosecutor of Georgia Murtaz Zodelava the materials for further response.

Ukrainian media outlet published audio-recording of the phone conversation of Vano Merabishvili, Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia and Givi Targamadze, chairperson of defense and security committee of the parliament of Georgia.

Former lecturer of the Telavi State University Eldino Jangulashvili blames the academician council of the university in her persecution for different opinion. Before firing, Eldino Jangulashvili blamed the university administration in corruption. In parallel to her activities at the university, she worked at the local non-governmental organization. Jangulashvili spoke about corruption and clan government of the university several times.

When I learned at school, we had one subject on the time-table - “military lesson”. I remember only entertainment from those lessons. Our teacher was former military servant who did not recognize girls. He taught boys how to fall gun into pieces and then compose again. Besides that, this process was always followed by laughing. The teacher, whose name and face I do not remember, was very serious person but we became unserious having seen the gun. In short, when I try to recall those lessons, I have vague but pleasant feeling because I see the smiling faces of the boys with arms.

On January 18, president of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili suddenly mentioned the issue of political prisoners when he was presenting resort project in Svaneti region. Speaking about future resorts of Anaklia and Mestia, he recalled famous case of Aprasidze and asked rhetorically. “How can several representatives of the so-called political elite treat their country like that?!”